WordPress Development + Graphic Design

Lady Business

{Part of cleaning house: laundry and an improvised door-jam clothesline.}

It has been over six weeks since my last blog post. I’m not sure how this accidental hiatus came to be except that life has been unmanageably busy as of late. More than that, life has expanded in ways that left little room in my head for blogging. In the last six weeks I unexpectedly went to Edmonton to hang out with my beloved Nana after she fell and broke her leg, went to California to attend the beautiful wedding of my cousin, finished a bunch of school projects, finished laying out a forthcoming book, went on a few hikes, was reminded that life is impermanent and fragile, saw entirely too little of my friends, replaced my trusty computer and enjoyed my family’s company.

This weekend though, was a turning point. As summer officially settles into fall and my program at BCIT set to wrap up in two weeks, I’m grateful for some time to slow down. I spent the weekend literally and figuratively cleaning house. (Nine loads of laundry! Eleven hours of sleep on Friday night! Lots of thinking about whether I actually like the frenetic pace of my current life! Long chats with N about everything! Beer and pretzels! Brunch!) I feel like the last six weeks have gone by so fast that I didn’t even see them happen. They just came and went with no time to think about them. I don’t want to always live like that, but it is nice to be reminded why the quiet weekends and idleness are so special.

Fall has always been my favourite time of year and I think the last six weeks have reminded me to notice it. To notice that it’s not so warm anymore, to notice that my body wants to be back in the pool, to notice that I’m suddenly starting the life I was dreaming of before I went back to school. I hope that means that I’ll be back in this space more often again. As part of my ‘cleaning house’ I plan to hop back on the William Morris bandwagon (if Jules at Pancakes and French Fries can do a project a day this month, I can probably handle one per week) and to start plotting my new business (more on that in a future post). There will be some cleaning up of my web house too, so look for that! It feels good to be back.

My motivation to do any type of William Morris activities the last couple of weeks has been pretty low. Between school, work, a cold (during the summer?) and all the other things that make up life, I haven’t been up to much. Today, however, we decided to get outside and weed the garden and clean things up a little bit. There aren’t any before and after pictures, because it’s pretty hard to tell the difference from a photo, but it definitely feels like a difference! The garden is growing like crazy and we’re already talking about expanding it next year and what we’d do differently. So far it’s yielded a few zucchini, lots of lettuce, tons of herbs, a few carrots and a few small bunches of flowers. If you’d like to see what the garden looked like about six weeks ago, click here.

I was expecting this week to be just as busy as the last two but everything converged in a lovely way to give me a week of relative ease! I was done school early everyday which left plenty of time for bike rides around the seawall and lots of time with N. We’ll be spending the weekend with friends, hiking and swimming in lakes and all that good stuff.

I hope wherever you are, regardless of whether this is a long weekend for you or not, it’s a good one. xoxo

{One of my favourite people in the world is visiting, so two of us surprised him at the airport with this silly sign!}

{Sunsets, long summer evenings and not a speck of rain all week (knock wood).}

As I mentioned last week, I was planning on going through my dresser for quite a while. I finally did it this week, mostly because I couldn’t get most of the drawers closed anymore.

Since I moved out of my parents’ house almost ten years ago, I haven’t had a proper dresser that was mine and that actually holds everything properly. I currently have two dressers. One is tall and skinny and doesn’t hold much and the other has two large top drawers with a cabinet underneath, which is helpful for blankets etc. but not really ideal for clothing storage. One day I’d like to by a proper extra long dresser, perhaps one that N and I can each have one side on, because I always prefer to have less pieces of furniture than more, but for now, what I have, will have to do.

Anyway, I started out with the unmentionables and socks. I got rid of things I never wore and paired many wayward socks. I also moved the unmentionables into the shallow top drawer in the larger dresser so that I can actually see everything I have at a glance.

{Ignore the stuff on top.}

After that, I was on a pretty good roll, so I got through the shirts, pants, shorts and sweaters pretty easily. From all of this, I learned a few things about myself:

I apparently love grey sweaters.

I need to buy myself some new underpants.

Most of my pairs of pants have holes in them from biking. I’m contemplating how to fix them but some of them may be beyond help. Harumph.

Long underwear are difficult to find a drawer category for.

I am apparently obsessed with wooly socks (though Canadian winters will do that to you).

Ironing is really not my forte.

{Under this layer, they’re all grey.}

I’m thinking that next week, I may tackle the closet (see my note about ironing) but in the meantime I’m glad that everything has a place and that I know where the place is for now. Unfortunately, dresser organizing is one of those things that has to get done a couple of times a year. I wish I was one of those people who folds everything neatly and puts them back in the right drawer, right away, but I’m never going to be. For the next few months though, this will be a major improvement!